TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
12 July
◆1109 Crusaders capture Tripoli, Syria.★
◆1260 Battle of Kroissenburnn: The Bohemians defeat the Hungarians.
◆1434 Massacre of Camerino: Slaughter of the Varano at mass.
◆1470 Turks capture Negroponte [Euboea] from the Venetians amid great slaughter.
◆1573 Haarlem falls to the Spanish, after a siege begun on Dec 11, 1572.
◆1630 New Amsterdam's governor bought Gull Island from Indians for cargo and renamed it Oyster Island. It later became Ellis Island.
◆1691 Battle of Aughrim: After initial success, the Irish Jacobites are defeated by the Williamites.
◆1702 Battle of Klissow: The Swedes defeat the Saxons.
◆1774 Citizens of Carlisle, Penn., passed a declaration of independence.
◆1784 Spanish-Neapolitan-Portuguese-Maltese fleet bombards Algiers (to 21st) to suppress piracy.
◆1794 British raid on Calvi, Corsica: Lord Nelson loses his right eye.
◆1801 Second Naval Battle of Algeciras: British defeat a Franco-Spanish squadron.
◆1804 Alexander Hamilton (47), US Sec. of Treasury, died of wounds from a pistol duel with VP Aaron Burr. In 1920 Frederick Scott Oliver authored a Hamilton biography. In 2002 Stephen Knott authored "Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth." In 2004 Ron Chernow authored the biography "Alexander Hamilton." Lawyer Ambrose Spencer (1765-1848) said Hamilton “more than any man, did the thinking of his time.”
◆1812 United States forces led by General William Hull entered Canada during the War of 1812 against Britain. However, Hull retreated shortly thereafter to Detroit. Madison had called for 50,000 volunteers to invade Canada but only 5,000 signed up.
◆1836 Commissioning of Charles H. Haswell as first regularly appointed Engineer Officer.
◆1861 Special commissioner Albert Pike completes treaties with the members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Tribes, giving the new Confederate States of America several allies in Indian Territory.
◆1862 President Abraham Lincoln signs into law a measure calling for the awarding of a U.S. Army Medal of Honor, in the name of Congress, "to such noncommissioned officers and privates as shall most distinguish themselves by their gallantry in action, and other soldier-like qualities during the present insurrection."★
◆1864 President Abraham Lincoln became the first standing president to witness a battle as Union forces repelled Jubal Early's army on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.
◆1864 U.S.S. Whitehead, Acting Ensign George W. Barrett, and U.S.S. Ceres, Acting Master Foster, in company with transport steamer Ella May, conducted a joint expedition up the Scuppernong River to Columbia, North Carolina. Whitehead, a small tinclad, and Ceres, a 140-ton paddle- wheeler, landed troops near Columbia, and the soldiers succeeded in destroying a bridge and a quantity of grain.
◆1916 Battleship USS North Carolina is the first Navy ship to carry and operate aircraft.
◆1921 Congress creates Bureau of Aeronautics to be in charge of all matter pertaining to naval aeronautics.
◆1943 The Panzer Division "Hermann Goring" resumes attacks on American positions in the morning but withdraws to face the more threatening British advance in the afternoon. The German 15th Panzergrenadier Division proceeds to pressure the Americans after arriving from the west of the island. The British continue to advance toward Augusta, in spite of Italian and German resistance, and capture Lentini.
◆1943 Off Kolombangara, Admiral Ainsworth's Task Force (3 cruisers and 10 destroyers) encounter a Japanese squadron (1 cruiser and 9 destroyers) under the command of Admiral Izaki.The Japanese cruiser obliterated by the radar-directed gunfire of the American cruisers but the Japanese sink one destroyer and damage two cruisers with torpedo attacks.
◆1943 The US submarine Pampanito was christened in New Hampshire. In 1982 the sub opened to the public at Pier 45 in San Francisco.
◆1944 Allied air attacks against the Po bridges begin. Elements of the US 5th Army advance. The US 88th Division takes Lajatico.
◆1944 The US 1st Army offensive toward St. Lo reaches within 2 miles of the town but faces heavy resistance from German forces. Hill 192, east of the town, is captured.
◆1945 Targets on the Japanese home islands of Shikoku and Honshu are heavily bombed.
◆1950 In a series of desperate battles, the 21st Infantry Regiment fought delaying actions from Chonui to Chochiwon. Not only did the two under strength rifle battalions of the "Gimlet" Regiment delay two of the best North Korean People's Army divisions, but they turned in the best battle performance of U.S. troops in the war to that date.
◆1950 The first Distinguished Service Cross of the Korean War was awarded posthumously to Colonel Robert R. Martin who single-handedly attacked an enemy tank with a rocket launcher.Martin had just arrived in Korean and had been commander of the battered 34th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division for one day when he was killed in action on July 8.
◆1950 Photographs of seven American soldiers found shot through the head by the communists shocked the world.
◆1953 United Nations Fleet launches heavy air and sea attack on Wonsan.
◆1988 The PHOBOS 2 Flyby and lander failed within 480 miles of Mar’s moon Phobos.
◆1988 SECDEF approves opening Navy's Underwater Construction Teams, fleet oiler, ammunition ships, and combat stores ships to women.
◆1990 Commander Rosemary B. Mariner becomes first woman to command an operational aviation squadron (VAQ-34).
◆1993 17 US helicopters conduct an attack on Aidid compound-at least 13 Somalis are killed.
◆2003 The USS Ronald Reagan, the first carrier named for a living president, was commissioned in Norfolk, Va.★